Letters to the Editor
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Larry Craig -- Hillary Clinton
Both are U.S. Senators. Both are rumored to be bisexual. Both are adamantly closeted, if they are bisexual. Both supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which apparently is the one of the touchstones that makes private sexual activity relevant. On the "closeted hypocrite" theory. (It isn't relevant, apparently, for Tammy Baldwin or Barney Frank, since they don't have the stain of hypocrisy; they are openly gay and they openly and consistently support the generalized gay legislative agenda.)
So what's the difference between Senators Craig and Clinton, other than party affiliation?
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Hmm.
"Among those alleged partners: Mike Jones, the former prostitute whose allegations against the Rev. Ted Haggard led the Colorado Springs evangelist to admit to "sexual immorality" last year."
What are the odds of that? Seems a bit suspicious, even to a pinko lefty like me who'd love to see Craig further embarassed. Kind of disappointing really.
And to Elephantman-- um, nobody's come forward to say they've had a secret affair with Hillary Clinton, so that's one differance. Secondly, her stance on gay issues, while slightly to the right of some Democrats, is miles from the extremism of someone like Craig.
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The difference between Craig and Clinton
Well, for one thing, Elephantman, the rumors about Clinton's sexuality are entirely the product of right-wing propagandists who believe that any woman who thinks for herself must be a lesbian. The fact that Craig was caught trolling for anonymous sex in a men's room is a matter of legal record.
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Elephantman must be jesting
One huge difference between Clinton and Craig is that the rumor regarding Clinton remains nothing more than the typical right-wing slur, and Craig actually pled guilty to a restroom dalliance. If you don't appreciate that, I have no doubt that a war with Iran would strike you as a good idea.
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Yeah Elephant Man, you really should wait until the RNC puts out their talking points
You're not very good at this on your own, that was goofy, even by your own low standards. Don't worry, Coulter, or one of the more creative extra chromosome nutjobs will put out something for republicans to spew pretty soon, and then you won't be out there twisting in the wind.
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You owe Senator Clinton an apology Elephantman.
Your comment about was breathtakingly dishonest.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
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Hilarious
Elephantman writes:
So what's the difference between Senators Craig and Clinton, other than party affiliation?
And a rightwing slime campaign continues...
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No apology needed
Elephant Man doesn't owe Clinton an apology, anymore than I owe one to Bush for all the mean shit I've said about him.
He owes himself an apology for saying something as stupid as he did, but that's a different matter. Within a day or two, there will be some RNC talking points distributed online, and he will use those, his idiocy today was a result of him trying to wing it by himself, he probably knows better now.
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About Mike Jones
Sure, it might sound unlikely that Mike Jones got around like that. But think about it. Closeted GOP Congressmen and closeted leaders of big churches probably do socialize (ahem)in the same circles. I could see Mike Jones as the discreet Cracker Jack passaround pack.
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Nice rebuttals of Elephantman.
Three more differences:
Craig belongs to a party that through gay-bashing, crippled the Constitution, is acting like Japan circa 1938, and tortures in the name of the pink baby Jesus.
Craig is one of dozens of Republicans who assert that God Hates F*gs, but sucks cock.
Craig belongs to the party of Jesus, a party that asserts that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, but a party that refuses to stone the serial adulterer, Rush Limbaugh, and a party that refused to stone the adulterer, Ronnie Reagan.
But Elephantman does make a valid comparison, for too many of Hillary's policies are right wingy.
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One more difference:
Those penis erectile porn studies suggest that there's no such thing as a bi guy. Guys who assert they're bi go erect for gay porn.
On the other hand, my experiences suggest that most women are bi and those same studies suggest the same.
So, to say that Hillary is bi is like saying that Hillary has a septum. What women doesn't?
But to say that Craig is bi is disingenuous. He's probably gay as Liberace.
And seriously, what's gayer than those wives of evangelical preachers and their hubbies? Those wives look like drag queens and their husbands are drawn to that...and their meth-y rent boys, of course.
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No apologies to Hillary, and none to Salon, either.
There is this, for those who want to do more research on their own:
http://www.lukeford.net/Images/photos4/huma6.htm
But the point is not so much to compare the quality of Craig stories versus Hillary stories. My point is to compare the morality and the utility of the two inquiries.
Do the Salon readers think that it is okay to investigate homosexual tendencies because homosexuality is inherently evil and corrupt? Probably not.
The usual trope is that it is okay to, uh, probe those issues because, they say, there is a public policy element if public officials who oppose gay rights legislation are themselves gay or bisexual.
When it comes to Hillary, she may have a better record of gay-rights support than Larry Craig, but not a perfect record by any means. DOMA is arguably the most significant piece of federal legislation on national gay rights between 1994 and 2006. Bill Clinton signed it into law. Hillary stands behind that decision. Hillary opposes the normalization of homosexual marriage now.
So why does she now get a pass, other than that she is a Democrat, and Democrats want to use these kinds of issues for their advantage, and want to plead "offense" if it is used against them.
Let's assume, arguendo, that the allegations about Hillary Clinton's bisexuality are not supported as clearly as say, a Larry Craig bathroom arrest. That certainly didn't stop the bloggers and reporters from investigating Craig for months prior to his arrest. And no one said the investigation of Larry Craig was a moral offense.
And now that Larry Craig is old news, here we have Tim Grieve having a bit more fun with the story just for the hell of it. I honestly don't care if Tim Grieve does that. The Idaho Senate seat will be Republican while Craig remains, and it will be Republican when he is finally gone. I'd probably do the same whit the story if I were Tim Grieve, but I don't think I could pretend that it was about anything other than the perpetual election campaign.
Here's what offends me: I am just not going to have any of the phony "outrage" bloviated by people like David Remnick in The New Yorker over the supposed monstrosity of anyone's breathing a word about the Hillary rumors.
Hell, I didn't make any of this up, and neither did the editors of The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal or The National Review. It was Gennifer Flowers who, to the best of my limited knwoledge, wrote about it in one of her books, saying that her lover Bill told her that Hillary had "eaten more p---y than I did." And if you want to pick sides in a he said/she said fight about pillow talk between Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers, I think Gennifer Flowers is a three-touchdown favorite.